Sanders Sides Wiki:Manual of Style
This is the Manual of Style for the Sanders Sides Wiki. This page will give an idea of how to write articles so they are consistent with many of the similar articles. Note that this page is still a work in progress, but what it says thus far should be followed. Editors should also read the Discussion "Manual of Style", which advises on how best to format posts on talk pages and forum pages for streamlined and consistent communication. General article guide * This is not a general Thomas Sanders wikia. This wikia specializes in Sanders Sides, and not in any other videos Thomas made. The admin has all rights to delete a page that does not follow this rule. * Article titles should use the most complete confirmed canon name available, e.g. "Ibrahim C" or "Daniel Fleming" rather than "Ibrahim" or "Motor". Titles must also be written in singular instead of plural, e.g. "Changeling". **Article titles should not capitalize all words, e.g. "Autobalancing act" rather than "Autobalancing Act"; the exception to this is if the title consists solely of a name that should be capitalized (see below). * Always include basic information about the subject when starting an article. * Avoid weasel words. Weasel words are sentences that sound nice, but in fact are vague, such as 'most Fanders think...' or 'people assume that...'. ** Actually, don't mention people in the fanbase at all. This leads to speculation and incorrect lines. ** Avoid words on this page too. This is the reason why Roman's intro doesn't read 'Roman Sanders is an egotistical character' anymore. * When writing the article content, titles should be written in italics, e.g. Losing my Motivation. * The definite (the) and indefinite articles (a/an) should be avoided in article titles, except if they are used as the official title. Also see; Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite or indefinite article at beginning of name). * Wikilinking a word or phrase is limited to the first occurrence of that word or phrase on the page. * Many terms are commonly miscapitalized. Common ones include the 'the' before any Specific Name. Try avoiding this. * Don't all-caps any words unless there is a good reason. All-caps is used for emphasis, usually when a term is first used. It should only be used on the wiki if it's clearly a stylistic part of the phrase itself. Which will basically never be the case aside from titles, so don't do it. ** There is a special case handling literal quotes, refer to the quote template for more information. * Avoid the terms 'before' and 'after' in regards to the video's. This is because it heavily depends on the context you have. **'Before My TRUE Identity' is before the Sides had their first video. No one currently knows if this ever exists. Do not use this. **'Before Losing My Motivation' is before the video Losing My Motivation came out. This would be a rather canny way to describe the video's that came before that video. Do not use this. **'After Losing My Motivation' is after the video Losing My Motivation came out. This would be a rather canny way to describe the videos that came after that video. Do not use this. ** 'After Learning New Things about Ourselves' is after the latest video came out. This would be a term for describing stuff after the story. Use 'after the story' instead. What should an article have? What is needed can vary wildly depending on the topic of the page. Some things which would be found on almost all pages of a single topic may be completely absent from pages of a different topic. For characters Character articles, arguably the highlights of this Wiki, should be divided into: *Introduction (no heading) *Etymology *Charactistics *Relationships ** This should not include shipping. *Thematic sections, if there are any **Note that there should be a very good reason for such sections to exist, rather than being merged into other sections or articles. For example, to describe their room. *Trivia **This section notes little facts not related to the plot, but related to the imagery of the character. *Gallery, if there is one (see image policy) At the bottom of the page, with no section headers, place: #The navigation templates related to the character. #The relevant categories associated with the character. For concepts Concept articles cover a broad range of topics and can vary from simple to complex. As such the contents of an article should be determined on a case-by-case basis, although some guidelines should be followed: *Introduction (no heading) *Mechanics and/or features *Different components of the concept For infoboxes See Character Infobox. For Galleries We use static images on mainspace articles in order to make the wikia more accessible for people with motion sensitive epilepsy. An exception are templates, which do not nearly get as much visit as mainspace articles. For locations Each major location gets an article. Locations are usually given the fullest title used. A location article should include: *... *... *... Place the navigation template related to the location, and don't forget to categorize them according to the relevant categories. When writing an article Articles on this wiki freely go between the careful, precise, general descriptive tone of Wikipedia and the generally conversational tone Thomas uses, riding mixed ongoing gags like vetal miking. In terms of the layout and ordering of content, bear in mind that sloppy is fine, but more importantly, arranged is fine too. How to handle the Sides' nature It is unknown as of yet how the Sides came into being, but it is known that they do not actually exist and are figments of Thomas' imagination. They share the he/him pronouns Thomas uses, but that's about it. The line between their free will and what Thomas wants them to do is vague, and maybe deliberately blurred. An important note about Relationships. While objectivity is always enforced, it is especially important to consider the fact that the Sides are not '''human and should not be treated as such, and their relationships with eachother is not like normal humans would do. Of course Roman and Virgil don't get along because anxiety stops creativity. You are not the one to judge about this, of course you are free to think of it what you want, but do not go preach your opinion. Compare: 'Roman and Virgil do not get along' to 'It's totally unfair how Roman treats Virgil!'. Active voice The active voice should be used wherever it doesn't lead to unnecessary emphasis. Here is an example of a sentence in the passive voice: *Roman and Virgil argue for the second time, and... Now, here is an example of that same sentence, except written in the active voice *Virgil argues with Roman/Roman argues with Virgil for the second time, and... In the active voice, the person performing the action is the subject of the sentence, instead of the person or thing the action is performed on. Verb tense To determine which tense to use in articles, it is logical to describe events happening in-story in the present tense. However, for some events that are in the past in the story as well, it may be more relevant to use the past tense. In other words: *Use present tense to describe plot and events as they happen, e.g. "Virgil ducks out", not "Virgil ducked out". *Use past tense when describing things that are exclusively in the past from the narrative perspective, such as the dancestor session. A related issue is a tendency of some edits to refer to events as happening "recently", i.e. being in an update that took place shortly before the time the edit was made. This is completely against the above guideline about present tense, and furthermore, common sense would indicate that writing in a manner that is capable of becoming outdated is simply not a good idea. Basically, if an in-story event has been a "current" event '''taking place at any point in the story, it should be written in the present tense, whereas if it is only ever described as being an event in the past from the narrative point of view, it should be written in the past tense. In addition, real-world events are always past tense, e.g. "Patton's first appearance was in 2016". Point of view On most Wikis, there is a policy to give a "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV). Events should be described objectively, as a rule, and most certainly should not represent any specific fan bias. Your personal ships in particular do not belong in articles, and will be disposed of in the customary way. Spoilers It is preferable to keep spoilers in the obvious sections, e.g. under a character's story heading rather than in their intro. However, our spoiler policy is essentially that we don't have one, and unmarked spoilers are to be expected. As such, one should aim to keep article openings as unspoilery as possible, but not go out of one's way to avoid everything that could possibly be a spoiler. Categorizing Each article must be categorized, and done so according to which category applies to it. A list of categories can be found Category redundancy should be avoided. When creating tables and infoboxes :''For table formatting and markup, see '' When making a template Be sure to add an explanation of what purpose it serves, so that the other users of the wiki do not have to guess. This goes double for admins, since if they see no purpose or even possible future potential use for the template, it is likely to be deleted. The explanation can be written as part of the template (between a and ) or in the discussion page. On this wikia, we adhere to a fixed order the four main Sides (Roman, Virgil, Patton and Logan) should be placed into. It is: Roman - Virgil - Patton - Logan This order is mainly to prevent messiness, but this order also has its roots in the process of creation and their elements. Working with Media Files Adding images The general practice would be to start image placement on the right side by adding "right" in the image coding, as in " ". The next image would then be placed on the left – " " – forming a sort of zigzag pattern. The main exception to this is pages such as weapon lists, which act as vertical pseudo-galleries, and have all images right-aligned. This may yet be brought into line with the normal policy, and in the meantime should be considered the sole exception. An image without white or transparent background should be either bordered or thumbnailed by adding "border" or "thumb" respectively in the image coding, as in " " or " ". Border is preferred for images that are a direct illustration of what the accompanying article text describes, and therefore does not require any additional caption. By contrast, a short descriptive caption should be added to thumbnailed images by writing the caption at the end of the code, as in " ". Apply common sense when deciding whether or not an image warrants a caption; if in doubt, though, remember that there is no harm in choosing thumbnail and having it changed to border later. Image galleries should be created when a number of images in a section clutters the layout. However, before creating a gallery, it should be considered whether it would be more prudent to simply remove some superfluous images. Each image in a gallery should have a short descriptive caption, which is produced in the same way as captions on thumbnails. Category:Policy